A kingfisher on the wires, a

dead pig by the side of the road.

"Such a bellicose armada," says

my mother as she pauses between

apoplexy & Appalachia, to smoke

another contretemps, & wait for

the next epiphany to roll around.

I am wearing a soft cashmere sweater —

ocelots try to hide behind my eyes.

I am wearing a Model T Ford magneto —

Vesuvius erupts & buries Pompeii.

I am wearing gloves & the touchscreen is unresponsive —

I'm not quite Imelda Marcos, but the comparison has been made.

I am wearing the minute hand of an Audemars Piguet watch —

demagogues accuse me of being soft on slavery.

I am wearing old clothes this Chinese New Year —

from where I sit, "antipodean culture" seems like an oxymoron.

I am wearing an account manager with a colorful fashion sense —

my cellphone rings, & illustrates the concept of mortality.

I am wearing a spearmint velvet blazer as a marker for intelligence —

later I will walk down to the lagoon to look for the pelicans.

Complete & unabridged

gene expression patterns

sit close together under

a shade tree. Pyramidal

when young, but with

obvious age-related alter-

ation over time, they meet

the requisites in any lang-

uage when a need to

demonstrate the use in a

sentence of the phrase in the

sequestered pergola is required.

Lollipop-men curdle the sky. Else-

where anchovies, but smaller than

the prototype. In a moment of

impetuosity, the Sage claimed

the desert was his friend. Went

out into it, was never seen again.

Interior masculinity is a trans-

lucent pale green according

to new noninvasive imaging

technologies. In other words,

turn the flesh inside out & it's

basically crabapples. Common

in gardens & parks, desirability

dependent on the color of light

that is transmitted & the luster

of the fiber used in its packaging.

Then the afters come in to play—

getting it home can be expensive.